Tag Archives: bread

I’m back! Will try to update my blog whenever I can. From my last post till now, it has been ages and now I’m a stay at home mum 🙂

Finally, I own a bread maker – Panasonic – SD-PM105. Thanks to my Tai Wai family for the birthday gift and the 1st loaf of bread which I’ve made was soft bread, using the recipe which came with the manual. It turned out well. It’ll be even better if it’s more dense. I’ll need to figure that out!

This is the 2nd recipe which I’ve tried and it turned out pretty well. Bread rolls seems easier to be eaten individually and also to share them with neighbours. I was quite worried that the bread will turn out hard as it looked hard on the outside but glad it’s soft on the inside. Best to eat it warm with a slab of butter.

1. Put all the ingredients except the dry yeast into the bread maker pan according to the order above. Put the yeast into the yeast dispenser. Set to the dough making function which in this case, it’s Menu 10 on my bread maker. It will take an hour to complete.
2. Once it’s done, immediately take out the dough and divide into 8-10 balls depending on your size preference and placed on a lightly greased baking pan about 2-3 inches apart.
3. Cover with a dry towel and let it rise for 15mins.
4. Meanwhile, heat up the oven to 190C.
5. Put the baking pan into the oven and bake for 15mins.
6. Once ready, serve it hot with butter or cool the buns down on a rack.

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 220C.
2. Mix the tomatoes, olives, vinegar, worcestershire, parsley, basil, olive oil, salt and pepper in a bowl. (You can prepare this in advance.)
3. Drizzle some oil olive on every slice of bread.
4. Line the bread in the oven and toast for 8-10mins.
5. Spread the tomato mixture on the bread (without the juice) and serve immediately.

I’ve always wanted to make my own pizza. But the thought of so much work for just my husband and me made us decide it’s better to have a group of friends over. So we made it a cell group activity: Create your own pizza! This is my 1st attempt at making pizza dough and thank God it turned out well since so many people were waiting to eat. Again, Jamie Oliver didn’t let me down. The pizza base was really nice. We had lots of fun making our own pizzas as I prepared loads of topping – tomato, 3 types of mushrooms, capsicum, pepperoni, bacon, stir fried shrimp with herbs, mashed potatoes, shredded chicken, rocket and 4 kinds of fresh cheese which we grated only when it was time to put it on. The pizza also tasted so much nicer when garnished with rocket leaves. We made 9 pizzas. Below is the mashed potatoes introduced by one of my friends. Was definitely yummy! Here’s the recipe with slight improvisation.

Method
1. Sieve the flour and salt on to a clean work surface and make a well in the middle.
2. In a jug, mix the yeast, sugar and olive oil into the water and leave for a few minutes, then pour into the well.
3. Using a fork, bring the flour in gradually from the sides and swirl it into the liquid. Keep mixing, drawing larger amounts of flour in, and when it all starts to come together, work the rest of the flour in with your clean, flour-dusted hands. Knead until you have a smooth, springy dough. 4. Place the ball of dough in a large flour-dusted bowl and flour the top of it. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and place in a warm room for about an hour until the dough has doubled in size. 5. Preheat your over to 210C.
6. Remove the dough to a flour-dusted surface and knead it around a bit to push the air out with your hands– this is called knocking back the dough. Divide the dough into 6 balls. 7. Roll the pizzas out. Bake the pizza base for 3-5mins.
8. Remove the pizza from the oven. Spread the half-baked pizza base with tomato sauce. You can buy the canned pasta sauce from the supermarket – classic tomato sauce or white sauce.

9. Sprinkle some cheese on top of the sauce. Add your favorite toppings.
10. Sprinkle another layer of cheese. 11. Put it back to the oven and bake for 18-20mins.

If you plan to keep the dough for later use, follow the step 1-7. Then, remove the pizza base from oven. Let it cool for 20mins, wrap with aluminium foil individually and keep in the freezer.

I am not a fan of bread but since it’s not easy to find good bread to motivate me to eat, I thought it’ll be cool to make my own bread. As usual, I like to find recipes which are simple and quick. I bumped into this online recipe which allow me to bake a bread in less than an hour without a bread machine. Sounds good! So here it is. I was impressed and it turned out very well – it was soft, thick and fresh 🙂 Love it!

1. Mix dry ingredients (flour, sugar, salt and yeast) just for 2-3 seconds.
2. Add oil and water. Mix for 1 minute and then check the consistency of the dough. The dough should be very sticky. If it is too dry, add more water (Do not over add water, not more than 1/4cup).
3. Mix for 5 minutes. (Do not add any more flour after the dough has finished mixing.) Remove dough.
4. Spray kneading surface with cooking spray and turn dough out onto surface. Knead dough briefly until it has a smooth even consistency (this will only take several turns of the dough to accomplish).
5. Divide dough into 2 pieces (or more if you wish to have smaller loaves) and shape loaves into desired shapes and place on greased baking sheets. Cover with a large dish towel and let rise for 25 minutes.

6. While loaves are rising, preheat oven to 350F/180C. When loaves are ready to go into the oven, use a sharp knife (you can lightly spray your knife with cooking spray to prevent dragging) to make several slashes in the top. Make each cut about 1/4-inch deep at a 30 degree angle. Bake loaves for 25 minutes, or until they are golden brown.

If you would like to watch the video of how the bread is made, click here.